Bringing you the Best Indie Music from the World's Chart Toppers!
Mike Cameo's "Indies' Top 10" brings you the latest music, news and information from the Independent Music world.
Mike Cameo features music from around the world, from the best Indie music charts.
Indie Labels Experience a Major Renaissance Amidst the Upheaval
(Hypebot) With upheaval comes opportunity; and ongoing problems within the recorded music industry has also led to a revival within independent label sector. While not without their own challenges, indie record labels appear to be experiencing a renaissance, thanks in part to new technologies and media that did not exist 5 years ago. Their nimbleness and a fan-like eye for emerging talent is being rewarded by a cadre of fans who continue to demand and support quality music......
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We Found A SUPERHERO!
So I'm out walking around in the afternoon and who do I run across? None other then SHADOW HERO, our hometown superhero! It was AWESOME! Pic is in the shop...will be posting shortly.......
Calvin Walker:Charlotte FM radio pioneer silenced
One of the voices of old-time Charlotte radio has gone silent. Calvin Walker, who worked at 10 local stations and outlived most of them, was found dead in his home Monday. He was 62 and had been in failing health. During his heyday in the 1970s, he was a pioneer of the new FM sound of album rock.......
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Record Store Day celebrates vinyl and its fans
A few years ago, the notion of an international Record Store Day might've felt more like a funeral than a celebration of the impact independent stores have had on music. As distribution (and later sales) of recorded music shifted into the Internet arena, Tower Records and hundreds of other music retailers nationwide went belly up.But when the second annual Record Store Day arrives Saturday, artists and labels will be out in force......
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Blender Magazine has been unplugged
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Alpha Media Group closed Blender magazine today, eliminating about 30 jobs and reducing its portfolio of titles to Maxim alone. The April issue of Blender out now will be its last. The decision, delivered to Blender staff in a meeting this morning, came as part of broader changes that also included the departure of Alpha co-CEO Glenn Rosenbloom and the integration of editorial staff for Maxim and Maxim Digital.
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An obituary for the major labels
(CNet) Almost a year ago, Matt Rosoff posted about how two executives from major Web companies had taken new positions related to digital music: Douglas Merrill left Google to become EMI's president of digital operations, and Ian Rogers left Yahoo Music to become the CEO of Topspin, a then-new company specializing in direct-to-fan marketing. A year later, Merrill's gone, following Guy Hands out the door. (Hands was the CEO of private-equity firm Terra Firma, which bought EMI in 2007.) I'm not sure what he did there, but imagine he was behind the portal site that EMI launched last year...to no effect whatsoever.....
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Big Music Will Surrender, But Not Until At Least 2011
Michael Arrington (TechCrunch.com) had a surprisingly candid lunch conversation last week with a big music label executive, and a good part of our talk focused on the future of music. He asked the usual question: Why are you guys so damned clueless? His response: It's all part of a master plan......
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Labels: whatever the future of music is, it isn't "free"
Labels say that it's not just about the concerts and the merchandise; people will still pay for access to recorded music, but not like they used to. The future is monthly or yearly payments for access to all the tunes you want........
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Chicago music ordinance again targeting indie shows
Ten months after a City Council committee tabled a controversial law that opponents say would hamper and possibly eliminate many of Chicago’s independent concert promoters, a revised draft has been circulated to aldermen and made public by a local advocacy group, which charges that little has been done to address its fundamental problems....."“If the ordinance becomes law, it will create unworkable burdens for many small and young music promoters in Chicago".......
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Music Industry - "How do we make money now?"
The music business has finally come to terms with file-sharing, according to executives at the Midem conference in Cannes. But now they have a different problem. They stopped suing file sharers, but now they whine - "How do we make money now?"
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Judge postpones hearing in key RIAA lawsuit
A federal judge in Rhode Island has postponed a hearing in a case that may test the legal underpinnings of the Recording Industry Association of America's suits against file swapping. U.S. Magistrate Judge Lincoln Almond on Monday rescheduled the hearing until January 6. Its purpose is to determine whether the parents of the defendant, Joel Tenenbaum, will be forced to turn over their computer to the RIAA's lawyers. This case is unusual because a group of Harvard law school students, with the help of Harvard law professor Charles Nesson, is providing Tenenbaum with an aggressive legal defense. Their goal: to argue that the law the RIAA relies on is unconstitutional.
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Taking a Wii...to new extremes!
Vivian Darkbloom just dropped us a line to tell us what's been going on with the band.
Ok, have we been under a rock? How did we miss this? You have to check out Rob Morris hooking his guitar to his Wii (ok, that sounds kinda painful....) and using the accelerator data on the Wii controller then capturing and translating that into...(switch to geek mode) :)
Go See This Clip!
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Third Eye Blind singer: A Web site can be your album
(CNet News) Stephan Jenkins, lead singer of the band Third Eye Blind, digital music fan, and former beau of Charlize Theron, wants to clear up a few things. He wants people to know that contrary to what some have been saying about him, he doesn't hate the album format.
On Monday, Jenkins gave the keynote address at the SanFran MusicTech Summit. He said he was in favor of releasing singles and suggested that this would help avoid "album filler," the term used to describe the placing of so-so tracks on albums in order to meet the required number of songs.
"I don't think (the album) is necessary or useful," Jenkins told the audience. "The album is an arbitrary concept. It's not something that has to exist."
A few days ago, Jenkins said in an e-mail that he wants an opportunity to expand on his comments......
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Facebook's streaming music plans: Out of tune with the record labels?
Leading social network Facebook is considering the idea of streaming music to users on its site. But its ideas for how to execute the plan could fly in the face of how music record labels typically license their artists’ content.
In order to avoid having to pay hefty royalty fees itself, Facebook has approached a number of streaming music services about a potential partnership, sources have told us and other publications. The idea is that the partner would use its existing licensing deals with labels to legally stream music on to the social network. Facebook's not saying anything specific about its plans (and sources say it may scratch them entirely).
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Holy SH*T! iTunes threatens a shutdown..??!!??
NEW YORK (Fortune) -- For five years, Apple's iTunes Music Store has been the Internet's most successful music store. But as music publishers have sought a higher share of its proceeds, Apple has threatened to shutter iTunes.
The Copyright Royalty Board in Washington, D.C. is expected to rule Thursday on a request by the National Music Publishers' Association to increase royalty rates paid to its members on songs purchased from online music stores like iTunes. The publishers association wants rates raised from 9 cents to 15 cents a track - a 66% hike....
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